Exhibitions at the Institute

The Duke House Exhibition Series

Fanny Sanín’s New York: The Critical Decade, 1971-1981

We are delighted to announce the extension of the Duke House Exhibition Fanny Sanín’s New York: The Critical Decade, 1971-1981 which will remain on view at the Institute’s Duke House until January of 2022. We are deeply grateful to Fanny for agreeing to extend the loans of her four exquisite large-scale pieces installed in the Loeb Room and the Lecture Hall, where they appear to have been painted precisely for these elegant spaces. This show is the first comprehensive solo exhibition to explore the Colombian-born artist’s evolving practice of geometric abstraction during her first decade living and working in New York City. It is an honor to give our community members further opportunity to view this exhibition curated by Anastassia Perfileva, Megan Kincaid and Edward Chang.

This show was the result of an initial class project for the fall 2019 seminar taught by Edward Sullivan on Curatorial Practice and Museum History. Fanny Sanín’s New York: The Critical Decade, 1971-1981 is generously funded by the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA) www.islaa.org. Special thanks to the Fanny Sanín Legacy Project.

The Great Hall Exhibitions Series

Cauleen Smith H-E-L-L-0: To Do All At Once

Cauleen Smith, H-E-L-L-O (video still), 2014, digital video, 11:06 minutes. Courtesy the Artist and Corbett vs. Dempsey, Chicago.

The Spring 2021 Great Hall Exhibition presented a solo exhibition of the acclaimed contemporary artist and filmmaker Cauleen Smith. Cauleen Smith, H-E-L-L-O: To Do All At Once was the first show in the series to take place entirely online and marked new opportunities for digital engagement. The exhibition focused on the artist’s 2014 short film, H-E-L-L-O, first commissioned as a response to Carnival traditions in North America. Set in the physical and psychic imaginary of post-Katrina New Orleans, the film casts isolated bass-clef performers amid the secular and sacred haunts of the city marked by devastation. In this way, Smith generates a constellation of artistic activity born amid the aftermath of regional devastation exacerbated by racial inequity. The exhibition website was designed in conjunction with the artist and included an illustrated biography and catalogue essay penned by the co-curators Megan Kincaid and Summer Sloane-Britt. In addition, the exhibition featured three responses to Smith’s film by colleagues and admirers of her work: Nikita Gale, Sky Hopinka, and The Black School. Each contributor considered H-E-L-L-O’s theoretical and formal approach in connection with their own practice––enlivening new dimensions and affordances of the film.

The 2020-2021 Great Hall Exhibition Series is made possible through the generous support of Valeria Napoleone XX. We extend special thanks to the artist for lending the work on view, and additional thanks to her gallery, Corbett vs. Dempsey. Megan Kincaid and Summer Sloane-Britt curated the exhibition. Lizette Ayala designed the website. Miquael Williams contributed to the exhibition as an advisory curator, and Dr. Edward J. Sullivan provided faculty support.

The NYU Curatorial Collaborative began as a student-led initiative in 2014, designed to pair graduate student curators from the Institute of Fine Arts’ MA and PhD programs in Art History with rising seniors from the Steinhardt School’s Department of Art and Art Professions BFA program in Studio Art. The project fosters interdisciplinary teamwork that prepares both the artists and art historians for future projects in their respective fields. Each year, the Collaborative hosts six student exhibitions—one group exhibition curated by three Institute students and five exhibits at 80WSE Gallery featuring student artists from Steinhardt’s Senior Honor Studio, each curated by one Institute student. In recent years the Collaborative also uses digital media to create virtual, online exhibitions.

The 2021 exhibitions included the first-ever virtual exhibition, an innovation born of the COVID-19 pandemic. This group exhibition was curated by Shelby Bray, Emma Flood, and Kaylee Kelley, and brought together the work of Adrian Beyer, sofi cisneros, Dora Duan, Victor Li, Pricila Modesto, Rhiannon Thomas, and Xiaoli Zhou in a discussion of fragmented memory and rebuilt identities.

Xiaoli Zhou, Installation (Tree), 2020, plaster, wire, LED lights, photographs. Dimension variable.

In-person exhibitions were curated by Chloë Courtney, Martina Lentino, Janelle Miniter, Madeleine Morris, and Leigh Peterson; the exhibitions brought possibility to a world of uncertainty, with collaborations spanning across the globe. In person exhibitions included the works of artists Oona Bebout, Yinan Chen, Naava Guaraca, Derek Koffi-Ziter, Les-lie Lopez, Eleisha Faith McCorkle & Tonisha Hope McCorkle, Giovanna Pedrinola, Camila Rodriguez, Isabella Wang, and Shane Weiss.

www.nyucuratorialcollaborative.org

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